Emperor of Steel

“Master, Henry has just sent a quick list and works from the Hydra, urgently!”

“Urgently?”

Sebastian handed Luke the message he had received from Henry.

Luke, who read the full information with a serious expression, soon smiled.

“The nobles have asked for a hearing? They must have noticed the intervention of the Imperial in the civil war of the Holy Empire.”

Moreover, it said that they had a strong witness.

And according to Henry, it was likely to be sooner or later for Hydra to be ordered to assassinate the witness.

‘Being a witness… did the Aslan who appeared here wasn’t a fake one but the real one?’

From Luke’s point of view, no situation was unfortunate.

It was a great way for the nobles to go and put pressure on the Emperor.

Luke was still under concern on when he was supposed to use the evidence that he had secured in the Konrad kingdom to encourage the nobles.

“Master, what are we to do?”

“For now, the order I gave about taking down the lower-ranked commanders and the Expert knights of the Central Army. And, sooner or later I will head there, till then…”

Luke gave detailed instructions to Sebastian.

He kept tapping his finger thinking if the idea was a good one or not.

‘Huh. Both the factions will be able to fight with a lot of reliability.’

Three years ago, Luke failed to initiate a fight between the nobles and the emperor.

At that moment of extreme situations, the Emperor made concessions and great compromises.

‘This time, I need to make sure to clearly divide both the factions from not letting that happen.’

With a sneaky smile, Luke sent out instructions along with the ones he remembered.

Shortly after, Sebastian went out taking all his orders, Luke called for Hudson, the head of Argos, the Information Organization of Rakan.

“The noblemen have just filed a hearing, are you aware of that?” Asked Luke.

“Something like that, I was just about to report it to the Lord. How did Lord come to know…?”

“That is because I have a separate source of information.”

Luke didn’t reveal the fact that he knew someone from Hydra and the Imperial Intelligence agency. To explain about that, he would have to give out the information about his demons, which could turn troublesome.

Which was why he gave out a rough answer, but Hudson didn’t seem to find it suspicious.

‘Did he use the other Information guilds? Maybe the one through the Holy Empire…’

Hudson realized that the second one’s possibility was higher due to Luke’s close relationship with Pope, Reina.

No, without any confusion he was definite about it.

“Well, because of that, the merchants of the nation are busy. With the purchases of grains, food, salt, iron and magic stones, and other strategic items, the prices are hitting the sky.”

“Are they expecting a civil war to happen?” Asked Luke.

“Yes. Because of that people are very flustered.”

Food and salt are very important items of everyday life.”

Moreover, thanks to the war items, the other product prices were jumping high too.

“We don’t care if they fight or not, but we will have to manage our strategic supplies well, just in case, for the estates’ suture.” Advised Hudson.

“Well, I understand what the Lord is talking about. I’d like to discuss this matter with other retainers and our new financial officer, Bentley.”

Even if the noblemen failed to put pressure on the Emperor at the hearing, the relationship between the two sides would still take an irreversible blow.

If not, Luke would take an aggressive route.

‘The civil war happening is definite. I don’t know who is going to win, but the powerful Baroque Empire will not be able to return back to its old glory and fame.’

It could only be known because Luke had a very close look at the Holy Empire civil war.

Although Reina was quickly reforming the policies, the overall power of the Holy Empire was comparatively less than before the rise of the Civil war.

The rebellion ended earlier than expected, so it was a great thing, our Reina would have been in much deeper trouble than now.

‘And if there will be any powerful lords who decide to act like me in this war, then we are all going to see a new age coming up.’

The collapse of the Baroque Empire.

From Luke’s standpoint, it could be stated as revenge by liquidating the remnants left by the past enemy, Duke Baroque.

Of course, not all of his plan ends there. New enemies were bound to rise in the most difficult times.

So, as Hudson said, it was better to have a good managing of the materials and other needed things.

“I need to let Kirillov know in a different meeting. Ah right, and..”

Luke, who forgot something, quickly asked Hudson another question.

“Has there been no word of Erwin yet?”

“Yes, since she visited an agent at Bless the other day and Sir Victor, all acts have been hidden. It has been presumed that there could have been a serious problem with the fairies.”

“Although I haven’t seen Kurgon these days, there have been a lot of complaints.”

The other day, Luke had visited the Red Hammer tribe because of the steel production for his exclusive Gigant.

At that time, Kurgon seemed to be very drunk.

And it was heard that an elder from another dwarf tribe had met and they ended up having a huge fight.

Not knowing that Luke was around, Kurgon threw the beer bottle.

“Bloody bastards! You don’t know what is going to happen if you anger them more!”

That was what Kurgon said.

Although it was a dwarf accent, Luke was able to understand to a little extent.

At any rate, Luke could see that the fairies were up to something, and some of them like Kurgon were worried about it.

‘What are you all planning? Considering that they opened the Spirit World’s door with the help of Reina…’

There was only one guess, however, Luke wasn’t sure.

Luke decided to find out more about it, seeing how the fairies would work in the future.